Skin Flick

Near Now, Broadway’s studio for arts, design and innovation, is proud to present this recently made short film by artist Adham Faramawy, produced with support from our Near Now Fellowship and Arts Council England.

Supported by Broadway’s Near Now Fellowship using public funding by Arts Council England.

Adham Faramawy talks about Skin Flick in terms of entanglement and toxicity, thinking about the substances we use and ingest, and the species we interact with and live alongside, as a way to denaturalise desire.

“Premiered at Tate Britain last September, Faramawy’s Skin Flick, 2019, is perhaps the most ambitious and personally revealing of the artist’s strange films, a signature fusion of comedic trans-humanist product placement, Cronenbergian body-reconfiguration and heartfelt testimony.

The film shows a writhing cohort of male models anointing themselves with mysterious gelatinous ointments as the artist, in the guise of a fantastical horned entity, relays the story of their own attempts to counteract discomfort with their own body… These images are permeated by animated effects that either smear the artist’s likeness into new tumescent configurations or contaminate it with sprouting mycelia and creeping moulds. As Faramawy describes the effects of their experiments, the distinction between animated effect and bodily register is blurred…”

Excerpt from ‘On Animatics’ by Jamie Sutcliffe, first published by Art Monthly, May 2020 

Credits

Performers in order of appearance: Alvin Tran, Andreas Stylianou, Nico Epstein, Peter Babbage, Joseph Funnell, Luke Hornsby, Hannah HrH Hopkins, Gray Wielebinski

Camera: Jack O'Brien, Nick Harris

Sound Recording: Nick Harris

Soundtrack: junior XL

VFX: Tom Kemp

NEAR NOW FELLOWSHIP

The Near Now Fellowship is Broadway’s artistic and professional development programme which, through curiosity and discovery, helps pioneering artists to explore and realise bold ideas. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Find out more at nearnow.org.uk/fellowship